Photo/Illutration Nobuyuki Baba, second from right, secretary-general of Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), meets on Nov. 9 with Kazuya Shinba, second from left, secretary-general of the Democratic Party for the People. (Koichi Ueda)

Two opposition parties that gained strength in the Lower House election reached a cooperation agreement on Nov. 9 on submitting legislation in the Diet and working toward constitutional revision.

Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) and the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) will have a combined strength of 51 Lower House seats, exceeding the 50 needed to submit budget-related bills.

Nippon Ishin became the second largest opposition party after gaining 41 seats in the Oct. 31 Lower House election, a fourfold increase from its pre-election strength.

Although the DPP cooperated with some opposition parties in the election, it distanced itself from the strategy of the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan of partnering with the Japanese Communist Party.

The DPP increased the number of its seats from eight to 11. Both the CDP and JCP lost seats.

One agreement reached between executives of Nippon Ishin and the DPP was on submitting legislation in the next extraordinary Diet session to cut the salaries of Diet members by 20 percent to reduce government spending amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Another proposed bill by the parties would lift the freeze on cutting the gasoline tax as a way to reduce the spiraling cost of gasoline.

Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui, the Nippon Ishin leader, told reporters on Nov. 9 that the new cooperative arrangement means his party “has become a presence that cannot be ignored by either the ruling coalition or other opposition parties.”

Nippon Ishin and the DPP also agreed to lobby the ruling coalition to hold weekly meetings of the constitutional commissions of the two Diet chambers to gain momentum for the first revisions of the postwar Constitution.

The combined Lower House seats of the two opposition parties and the ruling coalition establishes a more than a two-thirds majority in the Lower House needed to initiate a constitutional amendment.

However, Nippon Ishin and the DPP may not see eye-to-eye on the specifics of constitutional revision.

For one thing, Nippon Ishin has said it would seek a national referendum on a constitutional amendment in line with next summer’s Upper House election. The DPP, however, said it had not yet decided on a timetable.

The two parties also have different proposals on what to change in the Constitution.

Although the new cooperative arrangement will heighten Nippon Ishin’s presence, it still faces the task of moving beyond its image as a regional party with a strong base in Osaka Prefecture to one that can garner a large number of votes nationwide.

That conversion will be important as Nippon Ishin seeks to build on its latest success in next year’s Upper House election.

(This article was compiled from reports by Tamiyuki Kihara and Yuki Kubota.)

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